Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Today was an awesome day with some new experiences and some old experiences, but it was great all around. First things first, our group split into two with half going to San Miguel to the Orphanage and half heading to the construction site for a little manual labor. My group headed to San Miguel for the morning shift at the orphanage. On the way, we made our much anticipated stop at Mister Donut for breakfast. After having our best breakfast of the week thus far, we loaded in the van to go to the orphanage. However, we had a slight issue before we could make it there. Jacob's van had died and prompted a quick push start/work out for the men in attendance (Yay for CrossFit El Salvador) to get it running. After a short, little jaunt down the parking lot, we had the old Mazda purring like a kitten (maybe an ugly sounding kitten, but a kitten nonetheless!).
On my previous trip to El Salvador, our first minutes walking up to the orphanage had results in lots of hugs and chants and calling of the Americanos. This time was a little tamer by comparison but still fun. It was awesome to see the kids that I had seen in January and see how much some of them had grown. I was especially surprised by little Tanya and Fannie. As part of the morning shift, our team would be helping Sharilyne and Sandy with a Vacation Bible School program. Sharilyne led the kids in making their own tambourines complete with the verse Psalms 33:1 which says Sing Joyfully to the Lord, your righteous; It is fitting for the upright to praise him. However, some of the kids chose to create their own design. The most interesting of which had to be the girl I was sitting with who decided to copy the design of my State Street Volunteer t-shirt. Somewhere in El Salvador, there's the only State Street branded tambourine in the world. My company should be proud of that kind of influence. :) Sandy (and Jacob) then led the kids in an impromptu bible study and discussion. After that, we just spent time with the kids, played different kinds of games, and just gave them some much deserved attention. I spent quite a while tossing a tennis ball back and forth outside with some of the kids. Around noon, the members of our team that had been at the construction site showed up for lunch...dirty and tired. We had an always great lunch provided by Milena and the girls consisting of chicken, rice, and homemade tortillas. Afterwards, we said goodbye to the kids for the day and headed to the construction site for the afternoon.
My first impression of the construction site was that it was on the world's bumpiest road which very nearly gave me a stomach ache on the way up there. The second impression was much better as we piled out of the van and saw the beautiful plot that was being used. However, there was much work to follow. This day was mostly spent mixing up concrete. In America, this job consists of watching a truck do the mixing and hard stuff for you while you sit and have a cold soda. In El Salvador, this job consists of getting 6 buckets of gravel, 4 buckets of sand, and 2 bags of mix. Then you mix these elements together, kneading it like dough until you form a volcano shape. Then it's time for the 5 buckets of water. After the water sits, then you begin to knead everything together with a shovel until it's ready. This was often a very long and exhausting process (not really easy on the back either). There was a sense of reward that came with it though. Before we knew it, our afternoon was spent and it was time to head back to Usulutan and Hotel Campo Real.
Our group went out to eat at Wendy's tonight. While this would not normally be a special experience as there's one on every block here, tonight was a special night. Our new friend Jose' gave his life over to Christ on this night and accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior. Last week, Jose' had served as a bus driver for the large youth trip that certain members of our team had been a part of and he was invited to join in our fun for this week. Randy, Walter, and Joe spent the evening talking with Jose' and in Randy's words, you could see him being pulled back and forth deciding what he was feeling and thinking. It's just awesome to see something like this happen to really show how God is using us down here in people's lives and I hope to see more of it on this trip.
After dinner, we returned to the hotel and I had a great evening. As we didn't have a meeting, I was able to spend some much needed hang out time with my roomies, their wives, and a couple of others. Also, I was able to Skype Bethany for a while which was great because we've both been really missing the other although it seems that she's been doing a good job staying busy (I know I have been). However, the story from this night that has to be told is the story of the key! Jason "lost" the key earlier in the week when Luke gave it to him. However, Jason's been swearing up and down that he didn't know what happened to it. As I stepped outside to try and call Bethany, Luke decided maybe he should check his shorts from the day. Now, this is all second-hand information, but from the info I've gleaned, Luke found the key in his pocket, tossed it at Jason and ran out of the room. As I was outside, I saw this part. Jason then ran after Luke and chucked the key at him from across the parking lot while yelling "Two Days, Two Days!" As Jason had been the one forced to ask the guards to let us in each day, he was understandably a little high strung by this time. Just a hilarious end to a great day in El Salvador
#17, The Beast, Flirt to Convert (You had to be there...)
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